The Harry Ransom Center kicks off the 2008–09 Poetry on the Plaza season with The Mystique of the Draft on Wednesday, September 3, at noon.

Archives lift the veil on the creative process by providing scholars with access to drafts of a poet’s work. This event features works by poets whose drafts can be found in the Ransom Center’s collections. Readers include Professors Jerome Bump and Coleman Hutchison from the English department.

This program is in conjunction with the current exhibition The Mystique of the Archive, which opens September 2. Drawing from the Ransom Center’s extensive modern literature collections—including the archives of Julian Barnes, Don DeLillo, Anne Sexton, and many others—the exhibition describes what constitutes an archive, documents the evolution of creative works, and maps an archive’s journey from the writer’s home to the scholar’s desk.